Page 7 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

I quickened my pace, glancing behind me but not noticing anything out of the ordinary. On my seventh glance back, however, a couple of wobbling figures had appeared.

“Scarlett!” one of them slurred. “You said your name is Scarlett, isn’t it?”

“How would you feel about pocketing a little extra money tonight?” the other yelled.

I kept moving forward, anger boiling in my blood. That was insulting. I was worth a great deal more than just a little extra money.

“Is Scarlett the color that pretty face turns when you come? We’d make you feel real good tonight. You’d come first, and second, and third. Because we’ve got manners and shit.”

One of them cackled, and though I’d picked up my pace, I could sense that they were gaining on me and my accursed short legs.

This was the core problem. Whatever was wrong with me that made men want me and women hate me didn’t turn off when I’d achieved my objective. The small leather satchel on my arm was heavy with coin and a particular aquamarine necklace. I’d done what was required of me, as I always did. For my parents, then for Isabella. And now, I was doing it for me. Finally. Because in the last couple years I’d been dimming like a dying star, and I’d decided that the world was too grand and unknown to succumb quietly into the void.

I’d chosen life.

Maybe I’d be punished in the underworld for all of eternity for my selfishness, for the darkness inside of me that pulsed with greed and desire. But until then, I would live. I would burn.

I would fight against the emptiness that Isabella, these men, and this village stoked in my heart—the loneliness of being viewed as skin and flesh, a pretty object without a mind or a voice or a dream of great adventure and even greater love.

“All that hair would look so good wrapped around my fist, baby. You like it rough, don’t you? The innocent lookin’ ones always do.”

Don’t mouth off. Don’t mouth off. Ignore them. You’re almost home.

Then my sister’s voice snuck through. Told you it was too short. These are the consequences of attracting that kind of attention.

I spun on them, baring my teeth. “You will never know what I like in bed, because I don’t fuck pathetic, drunk old men with tiny limp dicks.”

Well, that was one way to go. An entirely stupid way to go.

Fuck, why did I always speak like I had the fight to back myself up? Because I absolutely didn’t. I was a human. No magick, no powers, no shifting ability, no supernatural speed or strength. And like an even bigger idiot, I’d left the dagger Phillip had gifted me for my birthday—secretly, of course—at home, in my bedside table drawer.

The men looked at each other for the one beat of anger it took to come to a mutual decision. The odds were not in my favor.

Me and my short ass legs took off running. We were too far away from town now—they must’ve been following me all the way home. I scanned my surroundings for anyone to help as I ran, but I knew it was futile. It was 3 a.m., too early for early risers and too late for anyone who didn’t close down the tavern.

Businesses were dead, the lights out. Beyond this sprawling cemetery lay a small strip of cottages where Isabella and I had lived since birth. I was so close, and yet I was too far to make it before they caught up to me. Not to mention I didn’t want them knowing where I lived.

The chilly air was ice in my lungs, and I suddenly wished that I was one of those girls who ran even when they weren’t being chased. I was losing steam quick.

Strong hands yanked on the strap of my satchel, jerking me back as I screamed.

He let me fall, and I landed hard on my back, all the oxygen deflating from behind my ribs like steam from a screaming kettle.

The stars were bright, the moon a waxing crescent. The screaming hadn’t saved me, so I began to shut down, to remove my mind from my body. I had to split, to detach. I had to float up into the night sky so I wouldn’t feel a thing, no pain and no struggle and no sensation.

The stars accepted me as one of them, welcoming me into the fold. The men’s faces loomed over my still, flat body, but I didn’t focus on them, didn’t commit them to memory. That way they couldn’t haunt me. That way they’d never succeed in stealing anything away, ruining that future on the horizon. Because none of this was actually happening to me. I was up there—in limitless space, where all possibilities existed in my palms at once. The place where the gods had gone, probably because they were sick and tired of watching their children do shit like this all the time, over and over again. Must’ve gotten quite dull. I would’ve left too.

I was going to leave.

The top of my dress tore. One of the men said something about my tits, probably that he liked them or wanted to bite them or suck them or fuck them.

I wondered if Valentin’s coast was as beautiful as it appeared in the painting Mom put in the upstairs bathroom, across from the mirror above the porcelain sink.

Less than two weeks now, and that was where we’d go first. Right to the coast. I’d run into the waves and swim as deep as I could go. I imagined what the water would look like, when it was that shade of blue—the aquamarine of that necklace, the color of my eyes—and it was all around me, enveloping me like a hug from Helia herself.

A different ripping noise erupted somewhere above me, the sickening tear of teeth through flesh. But I didn’t come down from the stars until I heard the roar and the howl, so loud that it shot me straight up, adrenaline and visceral fear finally forcing me back into my body. I held my exposed breasts as I watched Jaxon’s large wolf form rip one of the men’s arms off his body.

I looked down at my legs. They were still covered with fabric, and my panties were still on. So at least there was that. My night wasn’t entirely ruined.

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